


Teach These Broken Wings to Fly

by fishoutofcamelot



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Gen, Magic Revealed, Post-Magic Reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-13 02:30:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21236666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishoutofcamelot/pseuds/fishoutofcamelot
Summary: When you are born and raised under oppression, you don't get to learn what freedom feels like.Or: Arthur decides to legalize magic, and Merlin gets emotional about it.





	Teach These Broken Wings to Fly

Arthur knew that legalizing magic would make Merlin happy. With any luck, it would render him speechless. And anything that gets Merlin to shut up is worth endeavoring, in Arthur's book.

What Arthur didn't expect, however, was the extent of the speechlessness.

Merlin's body had gone stock-still, frozen between surprise and disbelief. His eyes were widely swirling with a blue kaleidoscope of emotions Arthur hadn't the depth to comprehend. His hands, ever so slightly, trembled.

Arthur called out to him, half annoyed and half concerned - but Merlin didn't respond.

"You really...you mean..."

Arthur rolled his eyes. "Yes, Merlin, I didn't tell you I was legalizing magic just to mess with you."

In the most un-Merlin of behaviours, he didn't take to the banter as he usually did. He just continued to rack his body with bone-deep tremors.

"I'm..." Merlin turned up to look at Arthur. His eyes were drowning in tears, which trailed down his now splotchy cheeks. "I'm free?"

Now, Arthur didn't take issue with Merlin crying, per se. Lord knew the man cried on a monthly basis, almost. If he wasn't holding a teary-eyed funeral for all the rabbits Arthur caught on his hunting trip, then he was crying about how beautiful the sunset was.

Merlin had always been particularly open with is emotions, wearing his heart on his sleeve even while lying through his teeth about being 'fine'. Arthur always admired his servant unreserved openness, and wished he himself could have the luxury of shedding some of his kingly stoicism.

So no, the fact he was crying didn't bother Arthur. What bothered him was the realization of why.

Merlin's knees gave way and he collapsed to the ground as he dissolved into a mess of sobbing laughter and disbelieving hiccups. "I'm free," he murmured to himself repeatedly, as though the idea was hard to believe.

It probably was, Arthur realized with a heavy shame. He probably thought this day would never come.

Arthur remembered how Merlin told them all about being born with magic, about fighting secret wars in his own, about having to do his good deeds under the cover of darkness, about how he never told anyone out of fear that he would lose their friendship. It was a grim, unpleasant tale - and Arthur suspected he had censored the worst of it.

Merlin tried to minimize the issue by saying that the fear of execution isn't so terrifying when it's all you know. 

Of course, it did not minimize things, only contextualized them. Merlin's flippancy, his devil-may-care attitude, his disrespect for authority, his reckless abandon - it all made sense. 

Merlin grew up in a world where his life had no value, and where any day could be his last. Naturally, such an environment would foster carelessness. 

Merlin had been born with magic. Born! Born to a society that ostracized, punished, and despised his kind like irredeemable vermin. Like monsters unworthy of love, unworthy of anything but the pyre.

How must it feel, being forced to hide and lie from day one? How must it feel to be a small and impressionable child, being taught that the slightest mistake could have you burned alive? How must it feel for oppression to be the only thing you've ever known, growing so familiar with the shackle around your neck that its departure leaves you breathless? How must it feel to grow up thinking you're a monster, a beast, a burden - and then finally be told you're anything but?

How must it feel to taste freedom for the first time? Is it foreign? Is it strange? Is it liberating? Does Merlin even know how to be free? To trust? To love himself?

Judging by the state of his servant on the floor, Arthur is inclined to give that a hard 'no'.

There will be times, Arthur realizes. Times where Merlin will slip back into old habits of lying and hiding. Where he'll get held awake by long-expired dreams of burning alive. Where he'll only use magic when no one's looking because he's briefly forgotten that his friends would never hurt him. 

And Merlin will think he as no one to turn to, because this is all so new to him. Living without an axe over his head is unfamiliar. Being himself is a luxury he has never yet indulged in. 

Merlin doesn't know how to be free.

Well. That just means Arthur will have to teach him, then. 

King Arthur Pendragon, son of Uther Pendragon, isn't big on all that comforting-and-consoling stuff. Not his thing. And yet, for some inexplicable reason, he feels compelled to pull Merlin into a tight hug.

And when he does, Merlin weeps loudly into his shoulder and grips his shirt like he'll die if he lets go. Arthur thinks he might be saying "thank you" or maybe "sorry". Whatever he's saying, Arthur can't bring himself to respond.

Arthur vows then and there that no matter what, no one will ever have to suffer as Merlin had. And Merlin himself will suffer no longer.

With that vow firm in his mind, Arthur silently apologizes for making Merlin wait so long.

And after that, Arthur cries too.


End file.
